I have prepared Classic Briam and I place a piece of parchment (papoillte paper) on a sheet pan and sprinkle the veggies on top with salt, black peppercorns grinded, Fresh basil leaves and a drizzle of Greek Evoo. I bake with balsamic vinegar for 30 minutes at 160 C degrees.
I use baguette or toasted in oven Pita from the Moroccan bakery.
Looks great !!! Really nice light dinner or tapa … (mezze) …
I use courgette or zucchine, red bell, green horn bells, red ripe tomatoes, aubergine, spring onion or leek and home made tomato sauce (simple marinara) with fresh tomato.
I have made with potato too but for summer, I keep it light.
Soaked the gigantes in cold water for a full day. Pressure cooked but left a bite on them.
Sauce was garlic, onions, tomatoes, pinch or oregano and thyme, and some red pepper flakes (that added no flavor as it turned out).
I added the beans and pressure cooked a little bit more to tenderize.
Nice olive oil drizzled over on the plate.
I will not second guess myself again on (1) not adding salt until they’re almost done, and (2) not cooking with acid until almost done. I’m convinced those two things extended cooking time way more than it usually is.
I tried making a pastitsio for the first time using a scaled down recipe from Kokkari: Contemporary Greek Flavors which is a cookbook from Kokkari Estiatorio, a Greek restaurant in SF that I haven’t been to yet. Pastitsio is a bit like a Greek lasagne. Layers of pasta with a layer of seasoned ground beef, topped with a bechamel custard. I thought it came out pretty well!
“Lathera” is more of a technique than a dish. The word derives from “lathi”, which means oil. Lots of oil. Basically, you poach vegetables in olive oil and tomato.
We didn’t have this when I was growing up, probably because Mom didn’t like oily foods. In fact I first had it in a taverna in Greece. The classic version uses green beans and potatoes, and that’s what I made last night.
Start with the generic tomato sauce I posted in response 13 above, but when sauteeing the garlic and onions, use a full 1/3 cup of EVOO. For the quantity in that basic recipe, add 300g green beans and 300g diced potatoes. Put it on a low simmer for about half an hour.
Here’s the result, just about like that version I had in the Greek taverna:
ETA: I forgot to mention that the tomato didn’t provide enough liquid for the long simmer. I added water, maybe 3/4 cup, and a tablespoon of tomato paste to compensate. Tomato paste is common in Greek recipes. To add liquid, Mom used to use bottled tomato juice, but I find it too salty.
Opa! Very nice. Did you use fresh tomatoes? The sauce is really bright, and has just the right layer of olive oil on top.
Fasolakia are green beans in Greek. Lathera (lah there AH) means simmered in olive oil and tomato. Scroll up a couple of screens for my posts about it.
Yemista! Tomatoes and other vegetables are stuffed with ground lamb and rice. I started with an online recipe, tried to reduce the quantities, but ended up with too much rice in the mix–it should be mostly lamb with a little rice mixed in. And the tomatoes were more tart than I’d expect for high-season heirlooms. The green things are zucchini.
After wrapping the stuffing in the grape leaves, I simmered them in just a little water for about 15 minutes. This was enough to cook the leaves. Other online recipes I looked at wrap the leaves in uncooked lamb and rice, and simmer for up to 45 minutes.
Then, my first ever attempt at avgolemono. It’s a little thinner than I would have liked for a sauce (as opposed to a garnish for soup). One whole Meyer lemon, one egg, and I used the liquid that the dolmathes simmered in, which is why the sauce doesn’t have the typical golden color that avgolemono usually has. It took just a couple of minutes with the immersion blender.
